Talk:John-Roger Hinkins/Archive 1

Notability Concern May 2007
Outside of Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness I'm not particularly wed to notability for this person. If folks wanted to change this to a redirect and include biographical material on Hinkins there, that seems fair to me. Rorybowman 02:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Needs Severe Editing
The article is a fawning biography which I strongly suspect is from the subject of the article in question. A criticism section (which seemed to be valid, as the organization this guy runs seems to be controversial) used to exist, but has been deleted. This article no longer abides by a neutral POV and so it should be rewritten. 66.234.211.188 05:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Be bold. Or just revert the last three edits.  Article still needs better sourcing.  Someguy1221 05:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Notable? May 2008
I tagged the article as non-notable. The only source is a book by a fellow New-Ager and former friend which provides a lot of negative material. Unless some more reliable sources come up I will nominate the article for deletion. Steve Dufour (talk) 23:17, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I just checked out Yahoo and the only things it showed were his own sites, Amazon selling his books, a couple of anti-cult sites, and WP. Steve Dufour (talk) 23:22, 10 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think MSIA is notable, hence John Roger (as founder of MSIA) is notable. You might argue, that he's only notable as founder of MSIA, and hence he doesn't deserve a separate article from the MSIA article, but then again, most religious group founders are only notable for being founders of the group, and yet we seem to generally have separate articles for them (e.g. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation; L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology; Claude Vorilhon and Raëlism; I'm sure there's more), so I don't see why the same shouldn't apply here. Thus I would suggest the notability tag be removed. --SJK (talk) 12:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * MSIA is clearly notable; it is the "Cadillac" of New Age movements, its involvement with Ariana Huffington, sex scandals, etc. And I agree with SJK's point above - if the religion is notable, then the founder is notable, especially in the case of what has been described as a personality cult. -- wormcast 22:28, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Hagiography
This is just hagiography, in the worst modern sense of that word. I, too, strongly suspect that it has been written by disciples of John-Roger. I am sure that there are many good things that he has done, but this article blows everything out of proportion and lacks any objectivity at all. It is, in the end, sad. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.142.130.24 (talk) 02:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I have toned this down substantially. -- wormcast 22:30, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Link to John Morton
The links to John Morton in this article are factually incorrect. John Morton, who is the colleague of John-Roger (Roger Delano Hinkins), is not the deceased author where the links refer the reader. John Morton is alive and the current Spiritual Director of MSIA.Wundermom7 (talk) 01:01, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Fixed. I removed the links entirely, as I do not think that MSIA's John Morton (John Kenneth Morton, fyi) is particularly notable. If anyone adds them back, please be sure to link them to a unique descriptor, e.g. 'John Morton (spiritual leader)' or some such. -- wormcast 22:33, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Edits
I have restored a couple of previously removed edits. Even so, this article reads like a PR release for the subject, who has been identified in numerous controversies (I have restored the link to the People Magazine article as well, since it included statements from several former MSIA members). I suspect the the re-writing of this article in late 2008- early 2009 is a POV violation. The whole piece should probably be rewritten. Darter (talk)darter —Preceding undated comment added 01:50, 7 March 2009 (UTC).

Added POV flag. Darter (talk) 16:35, 7 March 2009 (UTC)


 * the early 2009 spree of POV edits were done by User:Zoegolightly, who lists her current occupation as "PR Specialist at MSIA". I expect that sooner or later, she will return with a big bucket of whitewash... -- wormcast 07:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite
Substantial rewrite. I have:
 * moved the contents of the largely redundant, bloated lead into the body
 * removed or rephrased all of the POV language I found
 * stripped out a good deal of the bragging about minor or unnoteworthy accomplishments
 * added content and sources from the MSIA article, where appropriate
 * swapped the author infobox for a religious bio infobox. Yes, J-R is an author, but primarily of books and pamphlets for MSIA and related topics.
 * removed redlinks to fairly unnotable topics.

Some remaining tasks: --Wormcast (talk) 17:45, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * more detail and information needed on the accusations about sexual exploitation of MSIA staff, charlatanism, vengeance vs. alienated MSIA members, etc. But only if sufficiently sourced, please.
 * photo

Research tool
For anyone looking for (at least potentially) NPOV information on John-Roger and MSIA, it can be rather frustrating having to sift through the many search hits from sites that are owned and/or controlled by John-Roger and his many affiliated organizations and devotees. To filter out results from these sites, cut and paste this text in the Google search field after your search terms: "-site:churchofmsia.org -site:educarefoundation.com -site:esprittravel.com -site:forgive.org -site:godisyourpartner.org -site:heartfelt.org -site:iiwp.org -site:insightseminars.org -site:john-roger.org -site:life102.com -site:lovingeachday.org -site:msia.com -site:msia.org -site:msia.org.au -site:msiacanada.org -site:msiafacts.org -site:msiaflorida.org -site:msianorcal.org -site:msiaphiladelphia.org -site:msianortheast.org -site:msiasouth.org -site:mysticaltraveler.org -site:ndh.org -site:newdayherald.com -site:newdayherald.net -site:newdayherald.org -site:mandevillepress.org -site:peacelabyrinth.org -site:pts.org -site:sallykirkland.com -site:scottj-rproductions.com –site:soultranscendence.org -site:spiritualwarrior.org -site:thatwhichis.org -site:theblessings.org -site:universityofsantamonica.edu" -- wormcast 01:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hmm, google limits queries to 32 words, and MSIA's many faces overloads that. One approach is to seach using half the filter, and then search within results using the rest. Or, you can use this version, which strips out some of the sites less likely to weigh in on the subjects in question.


 * "-site:forgive.org -site:godisyourpartner.org -site:heartfelt.org -site:iiwp.org -site:insightseminars.org -site:john-roger.org -site:life102.com -site:lovingeachday.org -site:msia.com -site:msia.org -site:msia.org.au -site:msiacanada.org -site:msiafacts.org -site:msiaflorida.org -site:msianorcal.org -site:msianortheast.org -site:msiaphiladelphia.org -site:msiasouth.org -site:mysticaltraveler.org -site:ndh.org -site:newdayherald.com -site:newdayherald.net -site:newdayherald.org -site:mandevillepress.org -site:peacelabyrinth.org -site:pts.org -site:sallykirkland.com -site:soultranscendence.org -site:thatwhichis.org -site:theblessings.org -site:universityofsantamonica.edu"
 * -- wormcast 01:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

LA times and San Francisco Chronicle articles
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wormcast (talk • contribs) 00:00, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sipchen, Bob, et al. "John-Roger: The Story Behind His Remarkable Journey from Rosemead Teacher to Spiritual Leader of a New Age Empire" in Los Angeles Times. August 14, 1988.
 * Sipchen, Bob, et al. "Negativity Shakes the Movement on Eve of the First Integrity Day; Troubling Questions Prompt a Rift Among John-Roger Followers" in Los Angeles Times. August 15, 1988.
 * Sipchen, Bob, et al. "The Cadillac of Cults: Secrets and Silence Abound in the New Age Empire of John-Roger" in San Francisco Chronicle. September 18, 1988.

BLP and Notability issues
At first glance this article looks well-supported, but if you review most of the sources they are either not reliable (i.e. references to John-Roger/MSIA-controlled sources)(violating WP:SPS) or to articles that are discussing Arianna Huffington, and not the subject. Once the irrelevant citations and the self-referential citations are removed I question whether the subject is notable, and could be covered sufficiently in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness article. EnabledDanger (talk) 00:01, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that a good deal of the sources are MSIA-controlled publications; and with respect to certain parts, this is appropriate (religious claims, direct quotes, etc.). But additionally, many are not. I spent some time removing blatant POV and uncritical claims from this article, and relied on multiple, objective sources. Does more work needs to be done? yes. But if anything, the lesser substantiated portions are overly flattering to the subject, rather than libelous. The original form I encountered was a glorifying puff piece. Concerning notability, the subject is the founder of a modern religious movement that has several thousand members, including fairly high-profile individuals, and which figured significantly in a CA gubernatorial election. Definitely notable, by the fairly low standards of Wikipedia. Wormcast (talk) 10:27, 10 September 2010 (UTC)